So the Dean tried first this and then that and nothing would seem to suit. First of all he wrote:
“It is now forty years since I came among you, a youth full of life and hope and ardent in the work before men–” Then he paused, doubtful of the accuracy and clearness of the expression, read it over again and again in deep thought and then began again:
“It is now forty years since I came among you, a broken and melancholy boy, without life or hope, desiring only to devote to the service of this parish such few years as might remain of an existence blighted before it had truly begun–” And then again the Dean stopped, He read what he had written; he frowned; he crossed it through with his pen. This was no way to write, this thin egotistical strain of complaint. Once more he started:
“It is now forty years since I came among you, a man already tempered and trained, except possibly in mathematics–” And then again the rector paused … And the rector mused so long that when he began again it seemed to him that it was simpler and better to discard the personal note altogether, and he wrote:
“There are times, gentlemen, in the life of a parish, when it comes to an epoch which brings it to a moment when it reaches a point–”
The Dean stuck fast again, but refusing this time to be beaten went resolutely on:
“–reaches a point where the circumstances of the moment make the epoch such as to focus the life of the parish in that time.”
Then the Dean saw that he was beaten, and he knew that he not only couldn’t manage the parish but couldn’t say so in proper English, and of the two the last was the bitterer discovery.
Stephen Leacock
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
I’m not quite sure how I reached this stage of my life without hearing of the “Mark Twain of Canada,” but I have, (until now). I found three books of Leacock to bring with me on this trip, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the wit and humor of the man. He is a must read!
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